A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – Mar 23, 2026

 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – first edition of the 1943 novel

Published in 1943, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows Francie Nolan, a young girl growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn during the first two decades of the 20th century. The novel traces her childhood, adolescence, and coming of age amid poverty, family struggles, and the resilience of her Irish-American family. Her father, Johnny, is a charming but alcoholic singing waiter; her mother, Katie, works as a janitor to keep the family together. Through Francie’s eyes, the story captures the daily hardships – hunger, sacrifice, and the relentless pursuit of education – as she finds solace in reading and determination to build a better life. The title refers to the Tree of Heaven, a hardy weed that grows in tenement courtyards, symbolising the stubborn will to thrive against all odds.

James Dunn and Peggy Ann Garner in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) film directed by Elia Kazan

Its Place in Young Adult Fiction in the USA

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is often regarded as a forerunner of modern young adult literature. While it was published as a mainstream novel, its focus on a young protagonist’s internal world, her journey toward self‑awareness, and the realistic depiction of poverty and family, earned it a lasting place in the canon of American literature read by adolescents. It bridged the gap between adult fiction and the emerging genre of YA by:

Katie and Neeley chat about the tree that has been cut

– Centering a teenage girl’s perspective with honesty and depth, paving the way for later YA classics.

– Addressing complex themes—alcoholism, class, gender expectations, sexual awakening, and the value of education – without condescension.

– Being widely assigned in schools for generations, it became a staple of adolescent reading in America alongside The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Though the YA category did not formally exist in the 1940s, the novel’s enduring appeal to young readers and its place in school curricula have cemented its status as a foundational work of what would become young adult fiction.

Aunt Sissy with Francie and Neely on the stoop of their tenement

What It Brings Out About Immigrants’ Struggle in America

The novel vividly portrays the immigrant experience through the Nolans, who are second‑generation Irish Americans. Key themes include:

– Poverty and upward mobility: The family’s precarious economic existence – saving pennies, scavenging, and sacrificing – reflects the common immigrant reality of living on the margins while striving for stability.

– Education as the escape route: Francie’s determination to stay in school and her love of reading embody the belief that education is the primary means for immigrant families to rise.

– Cultural identity and shame: The Nolans have internalised some of the prejudices of the time; they distance themselves from more recent immigrants while still facing discrimination. The novel explores the tension between assimilation and preserving dignity.

– Resilience and the “American Dream”: The story neither romanticises nor dismisses the dream of a better life. Instead, it shows the slow, painful, and often compromised progress that many immigrant families experienced, holding onto hope through small victories, like owning a home or seeing a child graduate.

Francie goes to borrow books from the public library

In sum, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn remains a powerful depiction of how immigrants and their children navigated poverty, identity, and aspiration in early‑20th‑century America, and it helped shape the tradition of honest, youth‑centred storytelling in American literature.

Movie Poster for the 1945 film 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' from which many scenes have been illustrated in this blog

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - 75th anniversary edition

Poetry Session – Feb 20, 2026

 

Ten of us participated in a session that featured poets, all of whom had been recited before with the exception of Bruce Springsteen, a singer-songwriter who penned the lyrics of a contemporary protest song.

Arundhaty gave us an ekphrastic anti-war poem by Mary Oliver that takes off on a painting of blue horses by Franz Marc.

I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses

what war is.

They would either faint in horror, or simply

find it impossible to believe.

Devika chose a cryptic poem by Emily Dickinson in which she seems to dare God to take away a beloved person she has known. 

Significance that each has lived

The other to detect

Discovery not God himself

Could now annihilate

Geetha recited the ‘dub’ poet Benjamin Zephaniah who performs on stage, reciting poems mostly to reggae rhythms. 

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops

De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots

Dis poetry is designed fe rantin

Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,

Joe was upset by the menacing way in which US Immigration authorities used military-style kidnaps to strike fear into the hearts of non-whites in America. It was so antithetical to the tenets of freedom of life and liberty enshrined in the US Constitution that it horrified many Americans; Bruce Springsteen gave voice to the horror in the song, The Streets of Minneapolis.

Now they say they're here to uphold the law

But they trample on our rights

If your skin is black or brown, my friend

You can be questioned or deported on sight

KumKum read a ’tiny’ 10-line poem by Louise Glück that ends abruptly with the cry

I want you.

Joe mentioned that when he read Louise Glück, he bought her volume of Poems 1962-2012. After reading almost the whole collection he chose a few that he could make sense of. But later he had a dream conversation with the poet in verse which is reported in the text below.

Pamela liked Mary Oliver’s poetry for its simplicity and freedom from constraints; reassuringly the poet states –

I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish.

I’m just chattering.

Priya took on Rabindranath Tagore. There are more distinct blog posts on KRG’s website on him than on any other poet – the posts were to celebrate his 150th Birth anniversary in 2011. The eighth such post contains a song that  pulls at the heartstrings, no matter how many times one hears it. That a poet could express such a yearning for a person, indirectly, is a miracle. In Hemanta Mukherjee’s baritone voce it takes on the life Tagore meant to infuse into the words. Listen here to the song Tumi Ki Kebali Chabi. The translation is Joe’s. Has any poet expressed the source of his muse better? –

kabir antharer tumi kabi

you are the poet within the poet

Saras took up Robert Service in an anti-war poem he wrote on the eve of WWI:

Rumours of world-war are rife,

Armageddon draweth near.

If your carcase you would save,

Hear, oh hear, the dreadful drum!

Fly to forest, cower in cave . . .

Brother, heed the wrath to come!

Shoba’s choice of England’s great poet Alfred Lord Tennyson was characterised by an elegiac poem which he derived from that fifteenth-century classic of English, Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur. It contains the famous quote:

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways

Thomo chose the first Duino Elegy of Rilke, which begins an intensely religious, mystical group of poems that employs the symbolism of angels and salvation. It begins:

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?

He began the cycle of elegies in 1912 in the castle of Duino in Italy and completed it 10 years later in the smaller castle of Château de Muzot in the Swiss Valais. A castle composing poet, our Rilke was.